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Sunday, September 10, 2017

This weekend I finally got to run the first session of my
Fate Accelerated Star Trek game. I played with my Skype group from the MonkeysTook My Jetpack podcast using the rules I wrote up for FAE Star Trek. This isn’t
a straight actual-play report, but I do want to talk about how well the game
went.

The campaign is set in the 23rd century, during the
original series era. The U.S.S. Skipjack
is manned by an unruly crew of misfits.
The ship is equipped with an experimental cloaking device, directly in
conflict with the Treaty of Algeron, so the Federation needs to make sure its
crewed with “deniable assets.”

Our player characters for the first session included Captain
Jack Gilmore, a high-strung Andorian raised by humans; Commander Simon Lang,
the steely-eyed human tactical officer; and Lt. Commander Lux, the Denobulan chief
engineer.

For the first session (“The Gladness Factor”), I wanted to
keep things simple. A small and isolated colony has cut off all communication
after struggling for the past several months with near-famine conditions. When
the Skipjack arrives, the away team discovers
that the colony is doing quite well. Their crops and fields are fertile and all
the colonists seem happy. Super happy. Disturbingly happy. Way too damn happy.

The away team eventually discovered that a psychic alien
plant had taken over the colony. The Ego Plant insinuated itself into all the
crops, boosting their production. In return, the Ego Plant feeds on the
willpower of the colonists, forcing them into a nightmarish state of forced
bliss. Happiness or death!

Thankfully, after a desperate fight that involved remodulating
some phasers and the deaths of several red-shirts, the away team was able to
defeat the Ego Plant and free the colonists.

Fate
Accelerated worked very well for Trek. All the adventure-science stuff Trek
characters do like modulating phaser frequencies and scanning for alien
biologies neatly fall under Create Advantage maneuvers. Fate combat moves nice
and quick with lots of room for improvisation.

I was very happy that my players fully embraced the tropes
of the 1960s Star Trek series. Great big arm-swingy brawls. Tacked-on obvious
love interests. Random deaths of red-shirted ensigns. They embraced all this without
falling into the trap of parody. I look forward to the next session.

Ego Plant

Aspects

Big damn alien plant

Psionic menace carrying alien spores

Mostly immobile

Approaches

Careful +4

Clever +3

Flashy +0

Forceful +2

Quick +1
Sneaky +4

Stunts

Because I bear alien spores, once per session I can put the “weak
willed” aspect onto anyone who eats contaminated veggies or is in my immediate
proximity.

Because I am a psychic alien plant, I get +2 to sneakily
make mental attacks.

Because of my weird alien material, I get +2 to forcefully
defend against phasers.

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Who I Am

I am a long-time gamer who enjoys both new-style story games and old-style OSR stuff. I love drawing maps and goofy monsters. I help write, layout, and illustrate games for Hex Games, and I keep taking stabs at creating webcomics with mixed results. I talk about RPGs (and other things) at my Bernie the Flumph blog.